q life: with GABRIEL TABASCO

An Interview with Laurence, our loveable Nudist I came across Laurence’s profile while scrolling through twitter one afternoon. I had always found public and a turn on and admired people who could be so comfortable, and natural, in their own skin. Quite literally only in their own skin while out and about and ‘owning it’. From his Twitter feed I could deduce that he was an Australian, with a sunny personality living in Berlin and a nudist. He did everything in the and did it quite well. If it was intentional to make men like me (and women) horny while scrolling through his feed then he succeeded at it. If not, then it was an added bonus and point to him. I was intrigued about him, his finding the photos and scenarios sexy, and wanting to know about his motivation around it. And so I reached out to him with my questions.

Tell us a little about yourself. Thanks so much for interviewing me Gabriel, It’s a great honour. Let’s start off with the simple stuff. I’m Laurence, 33 years old and I grew up in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve been working as a web developer in Berlin for over two years now. This is my second time living in Berlin. I initially came as part of an exchange programme for my University and was meant to be here for just one semester but stayed for a whole year. Living in Berlin showed me that while Australia is a great, sun-kissed country, it’s also isolated and can be very backward. So when I graduated from University, I knew that I wanted to move overseas again and explore more what this amazing world has to offer, as well as push and challenge myself. I did the typical Australian thing of selling everything you own, saying goodbye to all your family and friends and starting all over again on the other side of the world. I ended up in Berlin because I wasn’t interested in living in America or the UK. And thankfully I was very easily able to get a working visa here.

How did you get into nudism? Actually, Berlin and Europe played a very important part in this. Let me explain a little bit about myself first. I grew up in a typical Australian family, going to a catholic school and struggling during my adolescence with my being bullied at school, dealing with anxiety, as well as trying to accept sexuality, plus feeling ashamed of my body. So when I was in the locker room at school or at the pool, I would always cover up. I loved swimming and as a young adult I swam in order to stay fit and healthy.

When I first went European (swimming in the nude) by myself when I was 24. I read about a weekly swim night in Amsterdam. It took all my courage to go and check it out. I was so nervous, and couldn’t look anyone in the eye. It was the most amazing feeling finally shredding off my speedos and finally swimming in the nude. The experience sparked something. Throughout my journey around Europe, bit by bit I kept challenging myself to get naked at beaches.

It was when I finally arrived in Berlin as a tourist during this trip, I went to a normal swimming pool. I went to the with my speedo, which I found out very quickly by a mother who was there with her husband and two children that this was a huge no-no in their culture. I had to bare it all or leave. I said to myself, I am in a forgein country, no one knows me here, so just go change into a towel and relax. And I am extremely grateful that I did it. By the end of the night, I made a friend in the sauna who I still see these days in Berlin.

Coming back to Australia, I tried to seek our nude beaches and discovered this nudist festival that is sadly no longer happening. I randomly went with this guy I just started dating as one of our first big dates. It was a challenge to both of us. This was just over a month before moving to Berlin for university.

When I came back to Melbourne after my year abroad, one of the first things I did was to join Melbourne's World Naked Bike Ride. It was the most surreal experience around my own city in the nude. I still remember standing outside Flinder Street Station in the complete nude, surrounded by 150 other cyclists, completed or near nude and with a huge group of onlookers. I was nervous and exhilarated at the same time. It was the best home-coming experience. Living over in Europe has shown me that we shouldn’t be ashamed of our bodies, instead we should celebrate it. For example, the over here in Germany are co-ed. Genders mixed together, sometimes as a whole family. At the end of the day, we are all flesh and bones, and we shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of this.

On your Instagram page you mention that you are ‘In love with the Freikörperkultur (FKK) movement’. Can you tell us a little about that? Freikörperkultur, or FKK for short, is German for Free Body Culture. According to Wikipedia it’s ‘the joy of the experience of nature or also of being nude itself, without direct relationship to sexuality.’ To me, it was about meeting others, learning how to be better connected to your own body, and how to form strong friendships with others without it being complicated by things that society may normally tells us as gay men to be judgemental of. By meeting people through FKK, I learned how not to judge others by how they look, instead find out who they are. By removing sex and sexuality, FKK helped me open myself up where I would normally be too scared of being naked on fears of being rejected or feeling shamed of how I look.

Where and when are you nude the most? This depends on where I am and the time of year of where I am living. It’s almost summer here in Berlin, so right now I am naked a lot on my rooftop terrace. As many of us are now working at home, I am working on my terrace a lot with my laptop. I mostly put on a t-shirt for any video conferences. After work I try to cycle to one of the two parks that has a dedicated nudist area. And on the weekends I try heading to one of the many lakes that you can strip down. Another great place to be naked is at the sauna at my gym or at the relaxation centers. If it wasn't for the saunas here, I wouldn't be able to survive the cold, dark winters. Hopefully next year I can do more trips around Europe and America and do some more nude trips. Hiking, camping, more World Naked Bike Rides in multiple countries.

You’ve posted images and videos of your adventures nude at Amsterdam Pride. What was that like? I went to Amsterdam Pride, the year I was studying in Berlin. It was my first time, and I was staying with a female friend called Lee who works as a tour guide, and lives with some other guides from the same company. At the end of Pride, Lee and her friends encouraged me to strip off for some cheeky Pride photographs on the canal. I had an amazing time, but I don’t know what the tour boats made of the whole thing.

When I moved back to Europe, Lee invited me to stay with her again. She knew I wanted to go to be naked for the whole of Pride, or with as little clothing as possible, since public nudity is not legal in the Netherlands. The company she was working for has an office overlooking the canal where the boats go by. They have this great party with many of the other guides as well as their friends and family. So when I came to the office, my friend introduced me to the boss of the company who agreed that it was alright for me to be naked in the office any time I wanted. In the streets however, I had to be more careful. So when it was safe, or when it was really crowded, I would take off my cock sock and party around naked. My friends didn’t care, and they were supportive. It was such a different experience to my first naked Pride.

In Amsterdam, my friends were by my side the whole time, and never felt uncomfortable once by my nudism. In fact, one of the people living with Lee, the housemate’s brother and the brother’s best friend were also with us. So I was partying with a bunch of straight men and women, none of them either told me to get clothed. The straight guys were really encouraging the selfies with random people, and they also jumped in for many playfuk photos.

What other Prides did you attend naked? Whilst travelling Europe in 2017 with my then boyfriend, we happened to be in Madrid for World Pride. Two hours before the parade started, he found there was a nudist group marching in the parade, and encouraged other nudists to meet up. Even though my partner wasn’t a nudist, he supported me and knew how scared I was of walking around naked in front of millions, but that I really wanted to do this. It was the most serial experience marching the whole parade naked with 50 other nudists. And then partying in the streets until the early hours of the next morning with no clothes at all. Any particular memories you would like to share in public events? One memory that will stay with me, was at the end of the day, while walking home with Lee during one of Amsterdam’s Prides. I had just a bandana covering my cock, while my ass was on display and a police officer stopped us. He explained in Dutch that I needed to cover up. Lee was annoyed at the officer, telling him it was Pride, and there were so many more important things to be concerned about. The officer reminded us that I could get on the spot fine. So Lee took off the transparent shirt she was wearing. I wrapped it around my ass and the officer agreed that it would do for the moment. The following year, Lee wasn’t in Amsterdam, but I still stayed with her housemates and went to the same party, with the same bandana to walk to the parade, only just covering up my cock, and losing it once we arrived at the office party.

Your Twitter feed is packed with hot photos and videos. Who takes them? Who sends them in? Mostly I either take them myself, or try and get my boyfriend or anyone else I am naked with to take them for me. I used to work as a photographer at university, so I learnt how to set up the camera and then jump into the frame for the shot. Otherwise I ask a random person passing by to take a few photos. Now and again, I receive a message from a photographer who wants to team up and take some amazing shots. Occassionally I might receive a message from friends or fans who saw a photograph of myself online and forward it to me. I’ve received photos from myself at different events I’ve strippef off at, or at the beach that I never knew someone had taken of me. That was a very weird experience. Seeing a photo or video from a place I was dancing or relaxing naked at and had no idea I was being filmed.

You now have an online following. Have you ever been recognised by fans? The first time that happened, I was just completely surprised that someone actually read my blog and knew who I was. I think I was bright red and couldn't stop blushing. Back then, I had a Tumblr account and tried to write posts educating others on what nudism is about, how they could be involved and help break down the shame many people feel about their bodies. At times I thought I was putting my voice online to an empty room.

One of the strangest experiences I had was at the second Amsterdam Pride I attended. As I mentioned, my friend's workplace was on the second level of the canal where the parade was taking place. When I arrived at the party (only wearing a bandana that covered my cock), many people I met the previous year came up to greet me. They were all wondering in the weeks leading up to Pride if I would make the trip over to Amsterdam. After a while, we went down stairs to the street and within a minute, a group of women came up to me and asked me if I remembered them from the previous year. Apparently I posed with them for some photos, and they said that it was the highlight of their experience at Pride. They explained that they decided to wait in the same spot in hopes that they would meet me again. They even brought some of their friends along to meet and experience this naked Australian guy. While all this was happening, an Australian girlfriend who I’ve known since my late teens was there with me. She was visiting Amsterdam by herself, and didn’t know it was Pride. She couldn’t stop laughing at seeing the ‘new’ side of me. We all ended up drinking and partying together. I had so many people come up to me that day saying they remember me from the previous year and they were so glad to see me back there again.

What about friends, work and family? Are they aware of your lifestyle? All my friends know about my lifestyle, many I have met through my adventures, or they have seen me naked one way or another. Friends I’ve known for most of my life think it’s funny. They have been supportive.

My family are all aware of my adventures, I am very blessed to have a very caring family. When I used to do TV and radio interviews in Australia, my mum would ask when she could tune in to listen in. And now that I am living abroad, I get messages from my mum asking what naked adventures I’ve been on.

As for my co-workers, this depends on my job, I try and keep my life personal. In one of my previous jobs in Melbourne however, one of my colleagues knew I was a nudist, as we met on a nude hike before I got the job. In a different job, some of my coworkers came along to the World Naked Bike Ride that I was organising to so they could show their support. It was an amazing feeling to see them joining in the ride .

At my most recent job in Berlin, a few of my coworkers found out through my Instagram account. I am unsure if they saw it linked on my Grindr profile or saw some photos on Twitter. One was German and didn’t care. The other is from Brazil and had so many questions.

Other than Q Magazine, you were approached by TV and other media outlets. What was that like as an experience? When I lived in Melbourne, I used to organise a number of nudist events and festivals. The very first time I was approached by the amazing Dean Arcuri for doing a naked interview about one of the events I was organising. I was so nervous and scared, but Dean was fantastic. He made me feel relaxed, and felt like I was naked at my own home during the whole interview. He even stripped off, which words can’t express how grateful he is for being naked, instead of taking the approach of making fun of nudism, as many interviewers has previously done. For example, I’ve been interviewed on Gold FM where they streamed the broadcast live on Facebook, during which the show’s hosts made many inappropriate jokes. But you get used to these immature responses and try to be witty and educational, instead of getting offended. My favourite experience was being interviewed by Channel 7 and Nine News for helping organise Melbourne's World Naked Bike Ride. I was even filmed walking out of a Seven-11 naked. Over the following weeks, I had a range of people from my swimming classes and even co-workers approach me saying that they saw the broadcast and were completely surprised to see me ‘blurred out’ on their television screens.

Forgive me, but I have to ask: have you ever become aroused while being out in public? If so, what did you do? If not, how do you manage it? This is one of the most common questions I get from textile people. The honest answer is no, I do find being naked in public arousing. Living in Germany and experiencing FKK, nudism is about being free and liberated. If I want to feel aroused, playful or naughty (however you want to phrase it), I love putting clothes on. I used to have a good collection of jockstraps, speedos, wrestling singlets and other fun clothes back home. Now I am rebuilding my collection. My boyfriend, who is also a nudist, is trying to get me into thongs.

However as most human beings, if someone tries to play with me out in public, that can be a big problem. I’ve had to tell many people, both men and women, to stop touching me in public. While it may seem like a lot of fun to them I know from organising public naked events, an erection can unfortunately cause the event to get into a lot of trouble with the police, and means that we may not get the necessary permission to run the event again next time.

Sometimes when I do get aroused, I have to manage it properly not to get into a lot of trouble. This is really difficult when you are in public and don’t have anywhere to hide behind.

You have a big smile and good energy. What do you like most about yourself? And what would you change? This is a tough question. A part of me would love to change many things about myself. Even after all these years being naked in public, I still struggle with my body. I find it hard to accept compliments or accept people who sexualise me. I don’t know how to put it, but to me, there are so many hotter people out there. When you are walking naked around Pride, you are surrounded by thousands of hot muscled men. It sometimes feels like everyone is looking at them, and even thought I am naked, no one seems me as I am no where as attractive as they are. So I guess I would love to change my acceptance of myself. I need to learn how to be happier with myself and not to stress so much. What I love about myself is easy I guess. I love how I have challenged myself, from moving overseas and pushing myself with my life and nudism, and become the person I am today. Oh and I get told a lot I have a great ass, so I guess there’s that too!

What are your future plans? Both with nudism and on a personal level. I want to continue to push myself in life and as a nudist. I want to do more public nudist stuff, or more CNMN stuff. I have learned how to enjoy this. I just wish I was able to do it more often without the threat of getting into trouble with the local authorities. I also dream about visiting home one day in the near future. I love to take my dog back to the beach, or go camping with friends at the great ocean road. I just wish we could do this naked together. I cannot wait to travel the world more, see more amazing places and explore what nudist opportunities many nudist cities have to offer. I have many couch surfing friends I need to visit.

Finally, I love to return home to join my friend's nudist festival in Sydney. They have done such an amazing job with the NAKEDMAN Camps, and to participate on another World Naked Bike Ride in Melbourne. Where much of my love of nudism started from.

Laurence’s handle: @fkklad You can follow him On Twitter: https://twitter.com/fkklad On Instagram https://www.instagram.com/fkklad